Søren Klausen

While it is common in social epistemology, philosophy of education and sociology to speak of theoretical knowledge, the concept of theoretical knowledge used in ordinary discourse has not been properly examined, and its relations to other types of knowledge remain unclear. This article argues that this ordinary language notion of theoretical knowledge has a distinct meaning different from the meanings of terms for other knowledge types, for example, knowledge‐that, and meta‐cognitive knowledge, and provides an analysis that characterizes theoretical knowledge as distinguished by its indirectness. The article then discusses the implications of this view for the practical role of theoretical knowledge and suggests that a reappraisal of its epistemic significance is due.

The very idea of a particular Chinese path to modernisation may seem controversial, especially when it is taken to imply that Chinese modernisation should be subject to normative constraints reflecting Chinese traditions and culture. This paper considers a possible justification for this idea, exploring an analogy between personal and societal development. Personal development is commonly viewed as being constrained by concerns for authenticity and continuity, that is, remaining true to oneself and acting in accordance with one's character, preferences and core values. This paper uses the notions of transformative experience and self-cultivation (the latter known from both Western and Chinese philosophy) to further substantiate the idea that processes of societal development should be sensitive to concerns other than maximising welfare and meeting universal criteria of rightness.

Kierkegaard used a wide range of subtle and circumspect forms of communication, like irony, dialectics and pseudonymous utterances. But he was also aware that they could be seen as expressions of an insincere or inauthentic attitude, and so should be used cautiously. His own preferred mode of ‘indirect communication’ is analysed. It is special more with regard to how something is communicated than with regard to what is communicated, but does have a special ‘content’ inasmuch as it aims to bring the listener to grasp herself in her essential subjectivity. While this appears to be a very special aim, it is shown to have potential relevance to more ordinary educational concerns.

It may not be immediately obvious why Kierkegaard should be considered an important educational thinker. It is argued that his relevance to educational issues lies in his thinking about which kinds of knowledge are of primary (that is, practical and existential) significance, in his development and critical discussion of the central notions of authenticity and self-cultivation and in his reflections on the possibility of a special kind of communication, which prompts the student to freely appropriate what is learned. Kierkegaard’s life and work is briefly described and used to characterize the peculiar nature of his project and style of thinking. His doctrine of stages is presented. Finally, Kierkegaard’s criticism of objective knowledge is analysed and its relevance to education is discussed.

Most debates in contemporary educational thinking and policy pit practical, short-term result oriented views against more ambitious, philosophical ones. Some educationalists are primarily concerned with employability and measurable skills; they are firmly opposed by those who insist that education should rather aim at ‘cultivating humanity’ or fostering enlightened citizenship. It is argued that while Kierkegaard’s view on education may appear highly ambitious, it is actually compatible with a concern for more mundane learning goals, and less idealist or perfectionist than those of many contemporary thinkers—even Kierkegaard he does maintain that authenticity and self-cultivation are the primary goals of education.

The chapter introduces the general idea of authenticity and presents Kierkegaard’s more specific view; how he tries to steer between extreme notions of self-creation and overly passive notions of mere self-finding. The notions of self-choice and autonomy are analysed and different lines of interpretation are considered. One of Kierkegaard’s most important contributions to educational thinking is his precise diagnoses of various ways in which the attempt to become oneself can fail or be misguided. The specific importance of these positive and negative insights for education is considered.

Kierkegaard shared many of the general views on education typical of the German Bildung-movement (represented by, inter alia, Goethe, Schiller, Humboldt and Hegel), but also criticized it for tending towards conformism and superficial learnedness. The core elements of the classical notion of self-cultivation (or Bildung) are outlined. Kierkegaard’s ambiguous and probing stance towards self-cultivation is exemplified by one of his main characters, Judge Vilhelm, who in Either/Or II is depicted as partly succeeding in cultivating his own personality, but also as taking too much pleasure in his own apparent mastery of life. Kierkegaard emphasized the importance of metacognitive skills and emotional self-regulation, but insisted that such abilities should be unified and directed by a fundamental commitment to achieve authenticity.

What does it mean to become older? This question cannot be answered by biology or sociology alone but must be addressed by studying how aging appears to aging persons and to others who encounter them. The paper presents the outline of such a phenomenological analysis of aging. In contrast to a problematic tendency to reduce phenomenology to the study of first-person experience, it is suggested that aging should be understood as a complex process comprising of both subjective and objective (mental, social and biological) elements, and as partly transcendent to experience, that is, not completely transparent to the aging person. In this it resembles physical and other “transcendent” objects as described by early phenomenologists like Husserl. It is further shown how Marcel Proust’s elaborate description of aging in the last volume of his Remembrance of Time Past can support and contribute to such an analysis, and how it is supported or at least compatible with findings from contemporary gerontology and cognitive psychology.

The question of how to become and remain an effective leader has been discussed for decades, and the answers that have been proposed have led to numerous theories and taxonomies of leadership behavior. By taking a critical approach to a contemporary integrative model of leadership behavior, this theoretical research proposes an alternative approach that can supplement both the integrative model and current leader–member exchange theory. Our approach is sensitive to both objective and subjective aspects of leadership behavior. We argue that perceptions of leadership behavior are influenced by interpersonal relations and contextual variables in an organization. We further argue that multilevel aspects must be investigated to understand leadership behavior and that the perceptions thereof shape and are shaped by relations and contextual variables. A distinct methodological approach based on mixed methods is then proposed to better understand what influences perceptions of leadership behavior. The article discusses the conceptual, epistemological, and methodological consequences of studying leadership behavior and perceptions of such behavior.

The moral and epistemic significance of emotions has been increasingly emphasized in recent philosophy. The focus has been mostly on metaethical questions. We add a new perspective by considering the practical importance of gauging, reacting to, enhancing, or reducing the emotions of others and oneself. We focus particularly on the collective aspect of emotion development and regulation, how emotions are entangled with values, and how they may be used constructively for handling otherwise difficult situations. We use the case of elderly care, drawing on a qualitative study from a Danish municipality, to illustrate the complex and multifarious ways in which emotions shape the normative landscape in which attempts to maintain or improve well-being take place.

Phenomenology informs a number of contemporary attempts to give more weight to the lived experience of patients and overcome the limitations of a one-sidedly biomedical understanding of illness. Susan Bredlau has recently presented a reading of Plato’s dialogue Charmides, which portrays Socrates as a pioneer of the phenomenological approach to illness. I use a critical discussion of Bredlau’s interpretation of the Charmides to show that the phenomenology of illness also has its shortcomings and needs to be complemented by still other approaches. While Bredlau does make a number of highly apt and relevant suggestions as to how a narrow biomedical approach to illness may be corrected, some of which are related to phenomenology, the attribution to Plato’s Socrates of a phenomenological approach is mistaken. Characteristically, Socrates shows little interest in the personal experience of a patient. He is more concerned with the patient’s lifestyle and conduct and so suggests an alternative or complementary perspective, stressing the importance of education and prevention to health care.

This book is a succinct guide to Søren Kierkegaard’s contribution to educational thought. Kierkegaard is not usually known as an educational thinker, but the book shows how his key notions and ideas are nevertheless highly relevant to educational theory and practice. It places them within the context of Kierkegaard’s philosophy and the philosophy of his time, while also exploring their significance to issues of contemporary concern, like the question of how far education should aim at fostering useful skills or support more ambitious goals. The central topics are Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of the limitations of objective knowledge and his corresponding emphasis on know-how, personal appropriation and subjective attitude; his analysis of more or less successful forms of self-realization; his ideas about fostering personal development through “indirect communication” and dialogue; and the elements, strengths and shortcomings of the ideal of self-cultivation.

Knowledge about human wellbeing is a central part of ethical knowledge. But it is a neglected topic not only in ethics in general, but also in wellbeing theorizing, which has focused on enumerating the basic elements of wellbeing rather than on how to gauge, foster and maintain wellbeing in actual human lives. I consider the prospects for a procedural approach to wellbeing that sees it as depending on a process of continual adjustment between values, preferences, actions and emotions. The value-fulfilment theory of Valerie Tiberius provides a model for such an approach, but needs to be corrected and supplemented in certain respects. I propose a version of the approach that is only partly, but still significantly procedural, and which does not privilege higher-order mental states. Considering the relevance of such an approach for ethics, I finally suggest that (certain forms of) moral agency may be best analyzed as an intersubjective process of adjustment and fulfilment of values and desires (etc.), and as a process of acquiring and exercising collective moral knowing how.

Intentionalism, it has been remarked, just won't go away.1 The idea that the meaning of a literary work is determined by the intentions of its author remains appealing and deeply entrenched in most people's thinking,2 in spite of ever-new waves of resistance. I do not wish to resume the discussion of the overall plausibility of intentionalism. Nor will I take a stand in the discussion of its different varieties, like actual versus hypothetical intentionalism.3 My interest lies in exploring the different ways in which intentions might determine literary meaning, and the different kinds of meaning that may be found in a literary work. I contend that proponents of intentionalism have been insufficiently attentive to...

The epistemology of abstract objects is a somewhat neglected topic in contemporary philosophy. I argue that a satisfactory account of our capacity for knowing abstract objects must consist in more than formal requirements. It must also comprise an investigation of the nature of the relevant processes of belief formation, notably the mental process known as intuition. A promising approach is what I call “constructionism” (not to be confused with antirealist forms of constructivism), the main ideas of which can be found in Kant, Peirce, Husserl and contemporary cognitive scientists like Laird-Johnson and Kosslyn. According to constructionism, we come to know complex abstract objects by carrying out processes of mental construction or performing mental experiments on the contents of lower-order mental acts. I discuss the strengths and limitations of the theory and suggest some possible further developments.

In spite of the booming interest in social epistemology, explicit analyses of group knowledge remain rare. Most existing accounts are based on theories of joint intentionality. I argue that this approach, though not without merit or useful applications, is inadequate both when it comes to accounting for actual group knowledge attributions and for purposes of meliorative social epistemology. As an alternative, I outline a liberal, de-intellectualized account, which allows for the complex distribution of epistemic states typical of most real-world collectives, and makes minimal requirements as to the psychological underpinnings of collective states of knowing and the formal features of groups. The account is inspired by theories of distributed and extended cognition. It is guided by the principle that we should use the same standard when dealing with social and individual epistemology. Careful attention to what is normally required—and, in particular, not required—for attributing knowledge to individuals lends support the more liberal view

The value and function of theoretical knowledge is an important and disputed issue, which has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. I attempt to clarify the notion of theoretical knowledge and examine its general relationship to learning. Theoretical knowledge is not necessarily distinguished by any particular content; the adjective “theoretical” can just as well signify a particular methodological approach or a way of dealing with a topic, including the way it is conceptualized. I further argue that theoretical knowledge can be merely implicit and non-propositional. Though I reject a radical constructivist view, according to which knowledge acquisition consists in socialization, it must be admitted that socialization and the acquisition of theoretical knowledge do turn out to go closely hand in hand, inasmuch as theoretical knowledge is often a precondition of successful socialization. Concepts, principles, models and symbolic systems support the acquisition of both theoretical and other kinds of knowledge, but also help the learner to find her way about in an environment that is already formed by theories and conceptual understandings. Theoretical knowledge is both a learning instrument and a tool for navigation

The overwhelmingly dominant view of epistemic normativity has been an extreme form of deontology. I argue that although the pull towards deontology is quite understandable, given the traditional concerns of epistemology, there is no good reason for not also adopting a complementary consequentialist notion of epistemic normativity, which can be put to use in applied epistemology. I further argue that this consequentialist notion is not, despite appearances and popular sentiment to the contrary, any less genuinely epistemic than the deontological notion and that it may even be considered more genuinely normative